Tofu Skin Recipes

I hope you all had a fun-filled New Year's Eve with your friends and families. What did you do to ring in the New Year? We had some family time at home. It may sound lame, but we watched "Murder on the Orient Express,"trying to solve Hercule Poirot's investigations (it’s so much easier when you’ve seen the movie like a dozen times ) while enjoying all the baked goods the girls and I have been concocting all week.

2012 was an incredible year for me. I feel so blessed and lucky, watching my daughter grow into an adorable toddler. And then there’s the publication of my first cookbook. I am so grateful for all the blessings that I have in my life. Thank you so much for your love and support. Here’s to making 2013 as unforgettable as 2012!

Back to today's dish. The girls' resolution is to lose as much weight as I did last year when I was working off my baby weight. I'm helping them by cooking healthy, yet still flavorful meals. One such concoction is today’s recipe: light red kidney bean patties wrapped in crispy bean curd. The filling is made of mashed kidney beans with panko breadcrumbs. The legume provides a sufficient amount of protein so the girls have enough energy throughout the day and the crispy outer layer provides a pleasant contrast of texture. For a healthy and complete meal, serve it with some brown rice and a dash of soy sauce. Enjoy!

Yuba is called tàu hũ ky in Vietnamese and it's a fairly common ingredient in the Buddhist vegan diet. Most meals resemble and have the texture of meat, and yuba often plays the key role of meat substitute in the dish. I was surprised to discover that Costco now carries this product. Lulu sampled the yuba strips and liked them, so I brought home a package.

I used the ready-seasoned spicy yuba strips and made a stir fry of various vegetables such as sugar snap peans, cauliflower, onion wedges and cucumbers freshly picked from our garden.

My husband Lulu noticed that the Marketmore cucumbers he planted two months ago had started to produce. It's so pleasant getting new vegetables every day. I'll show you our beautiful bounty of beets, cucumbers and zucchini soon. Our tomato plants are already 5 feet tall but the fruit hasn't quite ripened yet. I love California!

Mì xào mềm, as opposed to mì xào dòn (crispy egg noodles) is the Vietnamese version of Chinese chow mein. This dish appears in almost every Vietnamese fast food joint. It usually comes with chicken and seafood such as baby squid and shrimp, but I wanted to make sure the entire family would enjoy the dish as well (half of my family is vegetarian). So this time, I mixed the soft egg noodles with rolled tofu skin and several vegetables.

Living in the Bay Area, we're lucky enough that Asian markets carry a wide variety of fresh egg noodles. I always look for the thin kinds. If you can't find any, you could always boil angel hair pasta. The flavor will be slightly different but still delicious!

I served them with steamed white rice and a Vietnamese soup called canh mồng tơi on the side. This dish is perfect for my house as everyone was satisfied and shared the same meal: rolled beef (I'll post the recipe soon) for the meat eaters and mock beef rolls for the vegetarians. Even if you don't have the same variety of diets in your house, you can of course still enjoy the benefits of this healthy and flavorful meal. If you've never tasted tofu skins before, this is a great introduction.

Lulu calls hủ tiếu chay (fried bean curd soup in Vietnamese) the ultimate Asian comfort food. The hearty broth is flavored with bold Asian ingredients, such as ginger, garlic and mushroom seasoning salt. There are a couple of uncommon elements; I used Fuji apples and rock sugar to add a touch of sweetness to the broth, and a Vietnamese variety of cured daikon radish (củ cải khô) that provides the signature flavor of hủ tiếu broth.

The real treat though, is the addition of fried tofu skin. It's used throughout vegetarian Vietnamese cuisine as a substitute for fried pork or chicken skin in mock meat dishes. The texture is crispy, yet chewy, and really shows off the versatility of tofu.